Friday, May 2, 2014

The times they are a'changing...for gay people

But William Saletan over at Slate quotes Russell More of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious liberty Commission that evangelicals

spoke, for instance, about the "gay agenda," in which there was this picture, almost as though there is a group of super-villains in a lair, plotting somewhere the downfall of the family

Do I get an evil chortle too? How about henchmen. There must be henchmen.

Saletan thinks that religious conservatives are about to moderate their views on gay people. Oh, I don't think we'll be getting Moore marching in the next Pride parade, but he might be less inclined to champion restrictions on the rights of gay people.

Saletan also quotes Cornelius Plantinga of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, who says that people now "think of criticism of homosexual acts as sinful."

Currently, many religious conservative are claiming that an opposition to gay people is essential to Christianity. However, Saletan pointed out yesterday,

Fundamentalists, contrary to their reputation, are pretty good at ditching unsustainable positions. Moore demonstrated this during the Q-and-A when he declared young-Earth creationism "not essential to evangelicalism."

On the other hand, they just push it forward to the idea that we are all descended from an original pair of humans.

Christianity, even in some of its most basic claims, is going to seem strange, is going to seem freakish.

Given the actual percentage of the population that describes itself as Christian, I think we're a very long way away from anyone thinking of Christians as freakish. What will be considered "freakish" is building a religion around opposition to gay people. Because that is freakish.
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